5 Steps to Resume Success

Are you having trouble finding a job? If you don't know what you're doing wrong — but know you need to make a change — you might not have to look much further than your resume. Listed below are five steps that you need to take to experience resume success.

Fill it with the most relevant content. You don't want to bore any employers that take the time to look at your resume. Make sure to use verbs to describe what you have done in your past work experience. You should also only be including relevant information. Since you should be tailoring your resume to each job that you apply for, employers will have exactly what they need right in front of them. If you need help with this task, you can use Resunate to focus your resume to the job description.

Describe how you made an impact. If you fail to include how you've made an impact in your past positions, your resume won't make a very lasting impression. Once you've listed your responsibilities (using action verbs to show what you did), use the STAR format — writing each bullet point in Situation, Tasks, Action, Results format. This will help you describe to employers the impact that you've made in any organization that you have been involved.

Provide answers to any employment gaps. Eventually, you will need to explain any employment gaps. To combat these gaps, you should be looking for positive and productive ways to spend your time. There are many great opportunities available including: volunteering, furthering your education, acquiring new skills, networking, taking leaderships roles in trade groups, and joining local professional groups for connections and access to events.

Pick the best format for your industry. You'd be surprised, but highly designed resumes will more than likely hurt your resume's success. If your format is very stylized, an employer's applicant tracking system might not accurately scan your resume. It's possible that the technology will even delete some of your content.

Check to ensure it's error-free and easy-to-read. Once you've settled on a format, scan your document again to make sure that it is easy-to-read. Employers don't have much time to spend on each resume, so do what you can to make it easier for them to scan quickly and come away with everything they need to know. Any errors on your resume will distract the employer and reflect poorly on you.

Can you attribute any success to changes you've made on your resume?

Mona Abdel-Halim is the co-founder of Resunate.com, the world's only search engine optimizing resume builder. You can find Mona and Resunate on Facebook and Twitter